Conan: If It Bleeds
by Beta Fett
Summary: CH2 up.  Conan the Cimmerian, fleeing from a band of assassins, travels to the lush southern land of Corinthia, where funeral pyres litter the roadsides, women scream in the dark, and a city dwells in fear of something that stalks them in the night. R
1. Chapter 1: The Pyres on the Road

Conan: If it bleeds...

Chapter One: The Pyres on the Road.

The blinding white orb of the sun was at its zenith, throwing squat shadows of the colossal statues of grim forgotten kings onto the endless road of dust that shimmered in the midday heat. Conan shielded his eyes from the stark light, and took a satisfying draught of cool water from his canteen to ease his parched throat. He spat the last mouthful as a spray over the thick neck of his mount, and rubbed the liquid into its course hair, cooling the animal, which was greasy with sweat from its half day of hard riding from the Nemedian marches, over the hilly borderlands, and finally into highlands of Corinthia.

The beast was a fine northron gelding, shoulder high to Conan at its withers, wide hoofed, with a thick mane over its smoky black hide. Its powerful flanks were strong enough to haul a war chariot, or bear a fully armoured warrior, and yet it was not so hot blooded for its temperament to cause the Cimmerian any concern. It was a rare beast in these southern lands, bred from northern stock; a considerably more robust animal than the lithe Khitan breeds that he had come to find even as far north and west as Brythunia, though it was considerably outpaced by its eastern cousins. Its hooves kicked dry dust up from the road as Conan peered to the south-east, looking for any nearby signs of settlement, and though it had been a tough ride for an animal not bred for sustained flight, the cimmerian knew that he had not yet depleted its stamina.

From the hilly country in the Nemedian marches, Conan had fortuitously stumbled onto the Road of Kings, though his escape from Nemedia had been almost aimless except for his situation demanding that he head south. He knew his pursuers would more than likely be searching this route once they ascertained the geography of the lands, but he had confidence enough to believe that they would be at least a half-day behind him; the high craggy lands of the border were cold and icy and tough to cross on lesser breeds of horse than that which bore Conan on its back. They would have to back-track and ride east before they came to the Road of Kings—a half day's journey at least, even on the quickest of beasts—before they could continue their pursuit in earnest. By the time they caught up, Conan intended to be drinking a foaming jug of ale and wenching in some cheap tavern, anonymous among the other drunks, spending his bounty of purloined coins and gems that had led to the trouble in Nemedia in the first place. All he needed was to reach a settlement before they could reach him, but none yet seemed forthcoming.

Fat barons and crooked swine! He thought darkly. Gutless dogs banding together to buy the loyalties of hired soldiers to set at my heels!

He checked the route behind him, as if expecting the party of paid assassins to come charging over the crests and give chase again. But only pilgrims and traders leading donkey- and oxen-driven carts were upon the road, each on their way through the trading artery of the mid-southern lands to sell their wares and seek their fortunes. Satisfied he could now set a more gentle pace for the horse, Conan set off again, ever southwards; to head west or north was all but a foolish invitation to death itself, for word would surely have spread of the bounty now placed on his head, and the plentiful brigands of those lands, coupled with the mercenaries at his heels would be like the closing jaws of an avaricious beast, eager to consume him for naught but profit. The east bore little better: tough mountain ranges leading into vast expanses of barren desert where a man could wander endlessly in search of water and food, and perish within a few short days to become a feast for the vultures and flies. South it was.

On the journey he had seen intermittent funeral pyres here and there near the roadsides, and when he had made a few more leagues into Corinthia true, he came to notice more and more, some still smouldering embers, and others mere ash, scattered by the lazy winds. Sullen pilgrims in rags would pass by, heading north, some hauling small carts under their own labours, deprived of beasts of burden to take the load. More than once he had seen shrouded corpses borne in the back of those carts, summoning images and memories of blasted harbingers of death borne on the wind itself, and his mind turned to that most dire of civilization's afflictions: Plague.

There had been no word in the north of plague in the southern lands of late, but outbreaks were not uncommon. If the first town he came upon was blighted, he would have to pass by and keep searching, no matter how safe a refuge from prying eyes a pestilent town may be; Conan's business was staying alive, and no plague pit had ever been welcoming of guests, nor a considerate host at that.

The terrain was beginning to roll gently downhill now from the uplands of the borders, and the land was slowly transforming from rocky plains where little grew, to lush loamy soils, plains of tall grasses, glades of sweet flowers and thick, dense woodland, carrying refreshing scents of pine and cedar and eucalyptus. The wind had begun to pick up a little, and tousled his thick, black mane, ruffling the loose fabric of his sark. Conan began to doubt a plague in any land where the wind was so freshly scented, and in the heat of the afternoon sun took another satisfying draught of water. In these southern lands the heat grew steadily more intense, and the sun bronzed his skin quickly each time he headed south or east from the northlands of Aquilonia or Cimmeria itself, though he returned to his homelands seldomly since leaving. The horse, being a northron breed, was beginning to swelter and lag now, and would have to be sold to someone heading back to the chillier climates; it would not last long in close humidity of these lands.

Another funeral pyre, this one in full vigour of flames which licked skyward. The shroud concealing the dead within had just began to blacken and scorch. The thin gathering of mourners with downcast eyes watched the Cimmerian pass wordlessly, neither entreating him for help or charity, or warning him to avoid any settlements nearby. Conan let them be, and passed on by without making the enquiries of them he had at first thought to make as regards of their plight.

As he crested a peak on the undulating road, a small city was revealed to him: high walls and weathered ramparts, and stunted sandstone towers of no particular note, topped by tarnished copper domes. It was surrounded by agricultural plains where roamed many heads of assorted livestock, and tilled fields of crops that grew well in the sun. Along its northern ranges lay the great cedar forest that Conan had skirted for many leagues on his journey. To the south and east, the land dropped away sharply again, towards the inner kingdoms where the greatest concentrations of over-taxed peasant men turned to soldiery as a way of escaping the crushing fiscal burdens of their covetous rulers; Corinthian mercenaries were well known and well regarded throughout the known world. As was the way in Corinthia, rival kingdoms lay claim to lands all over, resulting in scattered city states throughout, like the unremarkable settlement he now observed. Relations between each ruler in the tense alliance was soured by squabbling and skirmishes over their boundaries, and high taxes imposed on traders travelling through the outlying ranges to reach the more prosperous and secure lands deeper within; for it was the lords of the outlying lands who always complained that they held the front against raiders and outland invading forces—especially when Kothan generals were sent to the borders to collect shortfalls in due tribute from their vassals.

To his surprise the city seemed to be bustling outwith like any stable trading post. At the city gates stood many trader stands and bazaars of all kinds, and the people flocked among them keenly. Shepherds moved livestock from pasture to pasture, or penned them in corrals of thickly woven thorns, as now the day was growing late, and even these lands were not without opportunistic predators that would snatch an untended lamb or calf and leave nothing but bones for the crows to pick clean. These was no plague here, he was sure.

But why then, his keen sense of judgement asked, so many bodies on the road? Why so many women and children traipsing in the dust to the north?

As he approached the crossroad that forked both towards the rambling city, or plunged ever southward, Conan also came to notice teams of men emerging from the forest, leading pairs of oxen which dragged behind them skids laden with lengths of roughly hewn lumber. The men looked over their shoulders to the thick, dark forest worriedly, as if fearing some unseen force may be stalking them. They pulled so hard on their halters that the Cimmerian could see the steel rings punched through the nose of each oxen stretch their very flesh as the weary oxen strived to keep pace with their pallid masters. The oxen teams were led to within a few feet of the city walls, where Conan saw more teams of men hurriedly digging up earthworks to reinforce a sturdy palisade that was under swift construction, each post hewn to sharp tips on both ends and driven deeply onto the ground before being shored up by the spoil from the earthworks at the rear. And more men yet, digging deep wolf pits and lining the bottoms with stakes, each sharpened to lethal points, then covered over again with thin twigs and disguised with fern fronds.

The aftermath of a siege, thought Conan, dead men burning on those pyres.

Then why leave the livestock? Why not torch the crops and salt the earth? His heavy brow drew over his smouldering blue eyes with consternation, and Conan pulled at the reins, drawing his horse from the road and set to following the oxen teams.

Expecting a siege, then? His mind proffered another solution, and just as quickly dismissed it: why would the crops not be harvested by now with fearful abandon, filling the silos to stave off the possibility of a long siege and slow starvation? Why wasn't the livestock protected within the walls?

With consternation twisting into sheer puzzlement, Conan approached the nearest of the oxen drovers-a wiry man with thinning grey hair, who started with unbidden fright at his appearance. "Ishtar spare me!" he wailed. "I thought you were the beast for a moment!"

"What is this? What has all you menfolk cowering over your backs like lily-livered eunuchs?" Conan demanded.

"Charity, please!" the oxen drover pleaded. "We're set upon by a terrible beast! It lurks in those dark woods, and slinks as a shadow within the city at night! It is a phantom... a wraith!"

Conan felt his blood cool a little at the mention of some otherwordly beast. Of no man was he afraid, but magics and sorcery and weird beasts borne from the hellish underworlds set a chill in his bones, though the man's cowardice soon heated his blood again. "This phantom has unmanned you! Speak on like you have a spine, damn you!" Conan barked.

"I have good reason to be afraid! Always men it takes! We hear screams in the night, terrible and hopeless. Footsteps on our rooftops in the dark. You may call me spineless, stranger, but I have seen the ruined husks of men it leaves behind. Our boldest and strongest—they are the ones left spineless! Their backbones and skulls ripped from their bodies while they yet draw breath enough to scream!" the oxen drover shuddered. "Others... flayed... skinned alive... and left dangling by their heels from arches and vaults like slaughtered pigs... The phantom runs hiding into the woods ere dawn breaks."

"Why doesn't your king send hunters and warriors after it? Chase it into the open and slaughter it as you would a bear?"

The drover halted, and his face turned to the Cimmerian fully now. His eyes were white orbs of fear, glimmering with tears of hopelessness, and his bottom lip quivered. "We have too few warriors left, stranger. After the first few weeks the city was out of its wits, and people were ready to abandon it and run to the surrounding kingdoms. But none of them will have us... The king gathered up all fit men of a fighting age and sent them into the forest." He began sobbing in earnest now, bitter, stinging tears that he shed shamelessly. "Only one returned alive. Wrought with wounds so terrible that he didn't survive the night... and my son! My son... "

"This man who returned... your son?" asked Conan sternly, but with a more charitable tone than he had addressed the man with to start.

The drover shook his head weakly. "My son never returned to us. And the beast roams the city still. Widows leave the city in a trickle, burning their men on the road," He pointed back up the dusty road Conan had approached from. "Traders ply their wares and take to their heels in fear of their lives ere the sun sets. And the king grows desperate. Besides the widows and orphans the king has forbade any citizen to leave the city, and sent riders to recruit mercenaries to fight for us."

"Mercenaries?" Conan growled. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword in its scabbard. He wheeled his horse and his keen eyes searched all around for anyone approaching, ready to cleave their skulls if his suspicions demanded it. "When do they come? Use the tongue in your god put in your head, man!"

The drover stiffened, now more affright than ever, and his trembling, palsied hand pointed to a few sparse men overseeing the toil on the earthworks and stockade near the city walls. "They came from the east early in the morning! Kushites, Hyrkanians...! Some malcontented Aquilonians and returning Corinthians... A pride of cut-thoats and boasters, Stranger!"

"East, you say?"

"Aye. Being paid a prince's ransom, too: Half the treasury! The Kushite warlords will come with fire and battering rams to our gates for their tribute, which these dogs will pocket and piss up a wall!"

"Half the treasury..." Conan mused, the gold and jewel laden purse lashed to his side now seeming paltry by comparison. "Who leads them?"

The drover's look darkened now, as if he found repeating the very name itself repugnant. "A craven serpent of a man called Xectloth."

"A stygian?"

"Aye." the drover almost sneered. "A perfumed and bejewelled fiend in satin. It was he who set the king's mind to send the city folk into the wood for lumber to build the stockade, while his men tarry and joke at the walls and that heathen stupefies himself on ale and women!" He spat on the ground, expunging the words he had spoke of the mercenaries.

Conan took up the reins of his horse again, and nodded westward, where the golden disk of the sun dreamily hovered on the horizon. "Make best time, man; dark will fall soon." With that he heeled the ribs of the horse, and took off at a canter heading towards the city gates, where the traders were now quickly packing their carts and streaming away in a steady column southwards.

Finding Xectloth would be no hard task, for if his life among mercenaries had taught him one thing, it was that mercenaries, given free time and enough to drink, became boisterous and belligerent. All he would need do is follow the sounds of heartily sung lewd songs and brawling.


	2. Chapter 2: To appease the beast

Chapter two: To Appease the Beast

Conan approached the gates, accompanied by overtly unwelcoming glances from the city guardsmen who flanked both sides of the trabeated archway. It was constructed from two jambs of thick standing stones, topped by a great stone lintel and a studded oaken portcullis. The walls of the city were of roughly hewn cyclopean masonry, except above the gateway, where a great lion had been carved into a considerable sandstone slab and set into the wall, watching over all who entered. Conan passed through, his keen eye taking in the great lion: a symbol of the deity of these lands, Ishtar. Over all of this was a strange confusion of architecture: a high portico of thick wooden colonnades, which also seemed to be brattice of sorts, from which the city guards could pour boiling fat or throw rocks onto anyone who attacked the gate - the portico had been changed at some latter stage of construction to become a defensive post.

There was a great shift in atmosphere as he entered the city at dusk. The citizens who had looked so relaxed from afar as they mingled through the trader tents and bazaars now walked hurriedly, and cast nervous glances up to the rooftops all around, as if the walls themselves had hemmed-in and contained a corporeal menace. Even the air, which carried pleasant scents of cooking meats that pleased his soul and teased his empty belly, seemed heavier and oppressive. Many a night Conan had spent in army camps on the eve of battle, and the pensive air of those long nights among uneasy men shared its pervasive ambience with this place.

He moved along the cobbled thoroughfare, which bisected a maze of wattle-and-daub hovels, all squeezed so tightly together that many came flush to the city walls. More uncertain glances were cast his way and people - mostly old or lame, he noted - slinked into their homes without a word, slamming shut simple wooden planking doors, and peering suspiciously though the gaps in the slats. Some even went as far as to dim or extinguish their candles and lanterns, so that no light beyond the thresholds would betray any presence within.

Conan allowed himself a grim smirk, and continued onward into the city, where the buildings grew in stature and function by small degrees, from wattle-and-daub hovels, to more sturdy structures of timbers and mud-brick and the squat sandstone towers he had glimpsed from the road. Still he saw no signs of the mercenaries within, or their leader.

As he studied his surroundings, he came to notice a disproportionate ratio of city guards standing on the northern battlements compared to the others. Each guardsman peered warily through the small crenels in the walls, arrows already nocked to simple yew bows in readiness, and Conan concluded with a flush of anger in his breast that the city guard hadn't been among the number that the king had sent into the forest to flush out the beast.

Peasants and serfs sent to slaughter and death while the city guard remains to protect the king's precious hide! He cursed the king a coward and spat onto the road.

Through the sound of his horse's hooves on the cobblestones of the thoroughfare, Conan suddenly became aware of a soft padding sound, as of bare feet quietly following him. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword, and the Cimmerian, with a hard tug on the reins that startled his mount, suddenly wheeled around, unsheathing his mighty broadsword and barked an inarticulate battle cry intended to unnerve his stalker.

"Me heard you fire tempered northman... full of unkind wu'ds But put away you sword; I take you to Xectloth." calmly stated his follower. He was a Kushite: A great black man imbued with thick, corded muscles who stood perhaps a foot taller than the Cimmerian. His hair dangled in thick matted locks, and he carried a long tribal spear topped with a simple flint tip, bound to the shaft by gut and pitch. He wore only a buckskin loincloth and a belt of ancient cracked leather from which hung an impressive scimitar in an oiled dog hair scabbard.

"Many a grave is filled by dead men who would sneak up on a cimmerian, Kushite. And what know you of my business with Xectloth?" Conan demanded.

The Kushite lounged against his spear as if it were a walking staff and smiled broadly. He nodded back towards the gate, still grinning. "You scare old man outside. He come to me, say you look for Xectloth. You look for Xectloth, Northman?"

Conan still held his sword at arm's length, studying this mirthful black giant, when the quiet of the still city was shattered by the distant wail of a woman. Her cries turned to desperate pleas and Conan turned his head through the air trying to pin-point where they came from.

"Don' worry 'bout the lady cry, mister." said the Kushite smiling, before lifting his head and rolling his eyes slowly from right to left as if he too were trying to fix the source of the adjurations, even as they faded... or were muted by force. "They just get her ready for tonight."

"What happens to her tonight? I'll have no part of taking women against their will, dog!" Conan exclaimed with rising suspicions of the true motivations of the mercenaries in town; He had struck off more than one head and other vital appendages of heathen lechers for succumbing to their most craven and base desires during his travels.

The Kushite laughed again, and Conan came dangerously close to striking him just to wipe the smirk from his face. "Handling the wrong side of the stick, Northman; 'Tis the king you should be asking those questions. You seek Xectloth now, yes?"

Conan grunted a chary affirmation, nodded and sheathed his sword. The Kushite strode past him, pointing the way ahead with his spear. "Good. This way."

Conan set his steed to following the stranger, wary of this Kushite who had followed him into the city. "I once knew a man from the black kingdoms whose head had the same look as yours - as if something from a dark pit crawled up there and died..." Remarked Conan dryly.

The Kushite ran his hands through his thick tendrils proudly. "These my deadlocks, mister. Keep one for every man I kill when running the boats 'round Zingara and Argos."

"A pirate." Conan remarked. In his past dalliances with loose and mostly unlawful vocations, the Cimmerian himself had once plundered the black coasts as a corsair - a past he now cared more to forget than remember; for in those days he had met Belit, self-titled Queen of the Black Coast: a fiery, passionate woman who was Conan's match in every way, and the closest he ever came to loving a woman. But she was dead now, and the ship that had borne them both around the black coast in plunder and adventure had been her funeral pyre. It was during his corsair days he had met the only dreadlocked man he had known up to now, but unlike this facetious Kushite, D'longo had been a spiritual man, and worn his dreadlocks as a form of tribute to his god, often saying that they represented the 'dread which I am beholden to the maker of all things'. Belit had told him that the pirates around the coasts had subverted their original meaning, and taken to wearing them to instil 'dread' in their victims or, as was the case with this Kushite, apparently to account for - and as a means to brag about - how many men they had made 'dead'. "Wine and the company of boastful men often have ways of making pirates exaggerate their tallies." he finished frankly.

The Kushite laughed and shook his head, and his long locks swayed with every movement. "Maybe true!" he chortled, never breaking his brisk stride. "What be the name I introduce you as?" he asked, deftly changing subject.

"You came to me; I'll have your name first." Said Conan, drawing his horse up beside the Kushite, so that they moved abreast along the darkening thoroughfare.

"Name be Kemba M'las'ha." Said the Kushite as he suddenly turned into one of a network of twisted alleys, closed in by more timber structures and sandstone towers. The sound of revelry reverberated dimly down the alleyway, and the air became quite pungent with the smell of waste trickling along the shallow gutters. It was twilight now, and no lamps had been lit in the streets, making the black man a task to spot as he walked in the shadows.

"I am Conan, a cimmerian."

"Hah!" exclaimed Kemba, his levity coming to irritate Conan more and more, despite the Cimmerian's reputation as a man of great mirth. "A true northman! You have big fun when you meet Xectloth; he be stygian! And his captain, Farnihm - he be Vanir! Be like wolves and bears when you meet, no?"

Conan ground his teeth unconsciously, both at the Kushite's frivolous manner, and at the prospects of dealing with not one, but two people of races he cared little for; the stygians were secretive, sly and covetous of wealth and power, and sought the ease of wicked sorcery too swiftly to advance their goals; the Vanir were blood enemies of all cimmerians, reigning in the bitter lands to the north of Cimmeria itself: a proud race of quick tempered men with bloodthirsty vices who enjoyed raiding cimmerian villages for pillage of gold, steel, furs, horses and for pleasure of the screams and warm flesh of seized women. "I'll have no quarrel with them as long as their tongues are cautious and their payment is prompt."

"Oh, pay be good, Cimmerian!" quipped Kemba cheerfully, "Just watch none try stab you in the back when time come to collect, eh?"

Conan saw a quick flicker on Kemba's face in the dark which may have been a wink, and the Kushite quickly turned into another dark alleyway. Ribald language and great heaving belly laughs echoed closer now and, a short way ahead, Conan saw lamplight spill from the doorway of a shuttered tavern into the street, illuminating a short section of the dark passage. Something metallic suddenly crashed thinly, and the belly laughs rose to loftier heights than before. A fat, balding man in worn leather britches and hauberk suddenly staggered out of the doorway, still braying with laughter and collapsed in a stupor against the wall of the opposite building. At the dim sight of Kemba and Conan approaching, he drunkenly fumbled for the hilt of his short sword and jabbed listlessly at the air with it. "Halt there, pig! I, Deilait, scourge of... of..." The fat mercenary's eyes wandered momentarily in confusion, and shouted into the tavern from which he had stumbled into the street. "Hey! Hey! What's the name of this heathen pit?" he droned drunkenly.

A tall broad-chested man in scale mail and furs strode grimly into the street and looked upon the fat mercenary with anger. His hair was long and red, as was his thick beard which was woven into a tight plait and tied off with twine. From a belt girdled tight around his small gut hung a small battle axe and other various hatchets. Conan knew instinctively this was the Vanir man Kemba had spoke of. The Vanir kicked the drunken man in the gut, sending the sot sideways into the gutter, where he retched the contents of his stomach. "Damn fool kothan! We should make you stand guard with a spear tip under your chin to prop you up! Dare you fall around drunkenly then?"

The drunken man, now face down in the gutter, began quietly singing some cheery little melody, happily blowing bubbles in the filth and his own disgorgement. The Vanir dismissed him with a curse and a curt wave of his hand. As he turned he dimly glimpsed Kemba and the approaching Cimmerian on horseback. He quickly pulled a throwing axe from some hidden cache behind his scale-mail shirt and held it aloft, ready to cleave the skulls of those approaching.

"Ho, Farnihm!" called out Kemba, still, to Conan's ire, laughing, "A friend approach!"

Farnihm studied them both carefully, axe still raised and ready to strike. Kemba, the dark-skinned kushite, he knew, but the grim barbarian on horseback, whose eyes burned with a passion of some unreadable emotion, he did not. Nor did he like the look of him from that very first glance. "You have the look of a pict or a cimmerian. Which is it?"

"And you have the look of a sunburned vanaheim raider, but what business is it of mine?" retorted Conan sternly as he dismounted from his horse.

The Vanir looked at Conan darkly as his free hand slowly reached for the battle axe at his side. Conan slipped a foot back defensively, and grasped the hilt of his sword grimly. A tense, wordless moment passed as they locked eyes, each willing the other to make the first move. Predictably, Kemba was the one to break the stand-off with another deep laugh. "Bears and wolves, I say. Say true, too." he chortled, with a strange self-assured satisfaction.

"You know this swine?" growled the Vanir at Kemba, without drawing his eyes from the cimmerian.

"To know his name, I say true: He Conan the Cimmerian. Can't much say more than that, 'cept he know the way of pirate talk. He here to speak to Xectloth for sword work, I say? Hmm?"

"A cimmerian?" questioned Farnihm derisively. "Shouldn't you be scavenging along the Aquilonian border and wrestling carrion from the jaws of wolves for your soup pots like the rest of your whoreson kin?"

"Whoresons?" responded Conan, rising to the taunt in spite of himself. "Bold words, dog. But knowing the Vanir, I would wager my purse that you were born an ill-begotten bastard of a hundred fathers. I know the blood that runs in my veins, Vanaheim—by virtue of your brazen mother, can you say the same?"

Farnihm's eyes blazed wide with a fury, and his lips curled back from his teeth into a vitriolic sneer. Presently, Conan saw the shift in the Vanir's stance, and with panther-like speed and agility, he side stepped Farnihm's throwing axe as its deadly edge pinwheeled through the air by him. As he hauled his sword fully from its scabbard he heard a dull meaty thud, and his mount pealed a grievous cry before it collapsed into a bleeding heap on the cobblestones. Conan charged at the Vanir, who swung the battle-axe in a great sweeping arch that would have split him from shoulder to hip. The Cimmerian ducked the swing and deflected another, barging his shoulder into Farnihm's mid-section. The Vanir's scale-mail shirt took the punch out of the impact, but it was enough to drive the red-haired warrior back a step. Conan swiftly used the momentary advantage and slipped his right hand from the hilt of his sword, cracking his foe across the mouth with a savage backhand blow that made Kemba wince.

Backing off as he recovered from the blow, Farnihm grimaced, blood now dribbling from both corners of his mouth, with a battle lust Conan knew all too well. The Vanir then drew a hatchet from his belt and twisted it once through the air, familiarising himself with its feel and heft. Conan responded by drawing his poniard, grasping the keen dagger in a reverse grip.

They came together again. Farnihm swung a ferocious blow at Conan's neck, which the Cimmerian had no choice but to block with his sword. The force of the strike from the heavy axe sent Conan stumbling to his right, leaving the back of his left shoulder open to attack. In an attempt to ward off his enemy Conan spun backwards, blindly lashing out with his poniard. But, the Vanir's expected swipe to his exposed back came a moment later, and Conan felt seething pain flare from his fingers to his wrist as both combatants missed their intended targets, and the iron shaft of Farnihm's battle axe struck squarely upon the knuckles of the hand with which Conan gripped his dagger. He gave a solitary backward step as the hand immediately became stiff and numb, making the task of wielding the dagger effectively a difficult prospect.

As they prepared to assail each other again, a thin flint-tipped shaft skewered the air between them, sinking deeply enough into a support timber of the nearby tavern that it remained perfectly embedded in place. The foes turned and found Kemba glowering at them, those great dark eyes for once looking guarded and uncertain, hand resting on the hilt of his scimitar. "Bears and wolves fight only for survival, not insults, no?"

Armed burly men in various assorted armour spilled out of the tavern doorway to investigate the commotion to find a tense three-way stand-off. Their suspicious eyes fell immediately upon Conan, who met their gazes defiantly.

From the tavern emanated the sound of someone clapping slowly, mockingly. With leisurely ease, a tall bronzed man emerged wearing a turquoise flax chlamys woven through with gold spun threads at the fringes and seams, and fixed with a malachite-set broach. The garment was thrown over both shoulders so as to leave both arms free, and revealed his thin, compactly muscular, torso. His hair was thick and as black as pitch, woven into a braid that reached to his shoulder blades. Silver armlets cast in effigy of cobras coiled from his wrists to his elbows, the eyes of each snake a perfectly cut ruby. His burning amber eyes glared, and his hawk-like features and thin-lipped smile made Conan all the warier of this Stygian.

Xectloth parted the huddle and approached the Cimmerian, still smiling minaciously. Conan rose from his hunched stance slowly, lowering his sword arm, but keeping the poniard in his stiff, throbbing hand ready to strike. He met the Stygian's gaze cooly.

He came to a halt a few feet before Conan, safely out of reach should the Cimmerian strike impulsively with sword or dagger, and ceased his apparently sardonic applause. He bowed silently. Conan, unwilling to return the gesture to this vulturine stygian, nodded back over his shoulder grimly. "The Vanir owes me a horse."

Xectloth's eyes held Conan's own, and a low, guttural chuckle seemed to ooze from his throat into the air. The band of mercenaries soon joined in, adding jeers and insults which made Conan's blood boil. The stygian waved them down and demanded silence. He peered behind Conan and arched an eyebrow in apparent appreciation of the dead horse, before turning to Farnihm and fixing him with a look of reproach. The vanir's eyes fell to the ground momentarily after being wordlessly chastened by his leader, but they soon regarded Conan with resentment as he fumbled in a light purse and threw a coin at his feet. Xectloth arched an eyebrow at Conan again. _Satisfied?_ his eyes asked silently.

Conan's eyes flickered briefly to the ground, looking upon the head of some unknown king on the face of the roughly minted gold coin. He nodded, but made no attempt to pick it up; his wary nature impelled caution amongst these men more strongly than his rapacious nature urged him to pick up the coin.

The stygian seemed to sense this and after a moment smirked at Conan again. "No fool." he said. His voice was a fell whisper, as he beckoned for the barbarian to follow him into the tavern "Good. Come. We'll talk."

Conan marked as he spoke that his tongue had been split down the middle – intentionally mutilated to form the likeness of the forked tongue of a viper. Of Set, the serpent god. "I want to know one thing, first." Conan demanded to Xectloth's turned back. The Stygian halted and peered over his shoulder without facing the Cimmerian.

"And that is...?"

"The women screaming in the streets..."

Before he had a chance to finish his question, Xectloth waved a hand dismissively, a thin smirk spreading across his face. "The king's superstitions, Cimmerian. We are innocent of that accusation, I assure you. For now." His men chuckled appreciatively amongst themselves, as if the Stygian's words were a joke. "She'll be set forth upon the northern wall tonight.." He began his slow stroll back into the golden light that fell from the opening to the tavern.

Conan followed after him, warily casting his eyes around the the surrounding mercenaries that flanked his path, sheathing his poniard and flexing his injured hand unconsciously. Farnihm bristled visibly, and defiantly spat blood in the wake of Conan's footfalls as the cimmerian passed him by.

"You mean staked out." Conan asked, vexed at the prospect, but all too sure he was correct.

"Yes... staked out on the ramparts... a sacrifice." Answered Xectloth, a cunning, predatory tone to his words. "...to appease the beast."


End file.
